This invention relates to a method of manufacturing mat-shaped heat exchangers employing hot water or the like heat exchanging fluid caused to flow therethrough and, more specifically, to a simplified method of manufacturing a heat exchange mat formed into a flat sheet shape for laying on a floor so as to achieve, for example, floor surface heating with hot water circulated throughout the interior of the mat.
One of the heat exchange mats of the kind referred to of the flat sheet shape and flexible to be laid on the flat floor has been disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,230,175, according to which the mat can be effectively applied to solar heat utilizing devices. In recent years, further, the flat and flexible heat exchange mats have been widely developed for the purpose of accomplishing the heat exchange with a house room atmosphere in an expanse of room floor. A typical one of such heat exchange mats comprises, as shown in FIG. 1, a hollow member 10 including a heat exchange element 1 of wavy warp and linear weft filaments 2 and 3 of a metal or plastic material and knitted with each other substantially perpendicularly and such an insert 4 as a textile disposed on each of top and bottom surfaces of the element 1, and a surface sheet 5 of a polyvinyl chloride or the like and bonded onto each surface of the hollow member 10. In the final product, as shown in FIG. 2, a pair of thus formed heat exchange mats 6a and 6b of desired dimensions are coupled edgewise to each other preferably through a plastic-made partition 7 shorter than the coupling edge of the mats, a plastic-made seal member 8 is secured to the peripheral edges of the coupled mats while leaving open positions at both ends of the partition 7. A plastic-made coupling member 9a for feeding and discharging the heat exchanging fluid into and out of the interior of the both mats 6a and 6b is secured to one ofthe open portions. A further plastic-made coupling member 9b for communicating the interior of the mats with each other is secured to the other open portion, so that the heat exchanging fluid can flow throughout the interior of the mats substantially as indicated by arrows in the drawing.
In manufacturing such heat exchange mat as above, further, the surface sheet 5 is laminated onto the textile insert 4 on each surface of the hollow member 10 including the heat exchange element 1, preferably with a layer of an adhesive in a sol state of a polyvinyl chloride resin or the like interposed between them, and this adhesive layer is fully gelatinized through a heating step so as to tightly join the sheet and insert, while the peripheral seal member thereafter secured to the lamination is heated by means of a high frequency welder or the like to be sufficialy fluid-tightly joined to the surface sheets of the lamination. In the manufacture of the heat exchange mat through such steps as above, however, there has been involved a problem that the manufacturing costs are caused to be high because a relatively long time is required for fully gelatinizing the adhesive layer and still the fluid-tight joining of the seal member to the surface sheet is time-consuming enough for rendering the entire manufacturing workability to be remarkably low.